All staff completed their second part of the paediatric first aid course today. It was very informative and all staff have renewed or completed training and can now deliver treatment where needed – keeping our little ones extra safe!

 

 

Head Teacher Update April 21

12^th April 2021

 

Dear Parent / Carers,

 

 

We hope you have had a lovely Easter break and welcome back to the start of our Summer Term. We can’t wait to see all the children again tomorrow.

 

 

After school clubs

Again we have had to think carefully about how we can make this provision work alongside our wider protective measures, like keeping pupils in their ‘bubbles’ when possible. We also understand that a lot of parents/carers need access to wrap around care to help with work commitments.

Class 1, 2, 3 and 4 Teachers are going to offer their class bubble one hour after school tuition three times per week . We can then keep our bubbles together and offer extra tuition to try and help close any gaps of learning for all of our Reception-Year 6 children. These tuition sessions will be of no cost and will last one hour immediately after the class bubble finishes for the school day. This after school provision will start week beginning 19^th April on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

 

 

Class 1– 3.00pm-4.00pm -Tue, Wed, Thur

 

Class 2– 3.15pm-4.15pm -Tue, Wed, Thur

 

Class 3– 2.45pm-3.45pm-Tue, Wed, Thur

 

Class 4– 3.30pm-4.30pm- Tue, Wed, Thur

 

SIBLINGS MAY CONTINUE TO ARRIVE AT THE EARLIEST TIME AND LEAVE AT THE LATEST TIME.

 

Class Teachers will send out letters on Tuesday 13^th April 2021 so that we know which pupils will be attending these sessions.

 

Breakfast club will continue as normal. Children who attend will be served breakfast in their own classroom bubble to avoid class bubbles mixing. It will start at 8am and finish when their class bubble arrives. It will continue to cost £1 per day, which you can pay via parent pay. Parents/Carers will need to follow same arrival guidelines as attending school classes and supervisory assistants will meet at main entrance at 8am. Please could children arrive on time.

 

 

Arrival and Departure

 

The times of arrival and departure for the different year groups continue to be:

 

Class 1 Children (Reception) – 8.45am-3.00pm

 

Class 2 children (Years 1/2) – 9.00am-3.15pm

 

Class 3 children (Years 3/4) – 8.30am-2.45pm

 

Class 4 children (Years 5/6) – 9.15am-3.30pm

 

At these allocated times parents/carers will need to be waiting outside main school gate at main entrance, alongside the green fence, adhering to social distance requirements at all times. Only 1 adult should drop off/pick, up to reduce the number of people around school. Please walk, or cycle, to school whenever possible – to ease traffic congestion. Please disperse as soon as you have dropped off / collected your child – to avoid unnecessary larger gatherings.

Parents/Carers will not be allowed to enter the school building/school site or have the daily contact or conversations they are used to having with staff but we will try our best. Contact will continue to be mostly electronic via email and telephone and prior arranged appointments.  Please adhere to strict social distancing at drop off points and only arrive at school in time to drop off and collect your child.  Arriving or staying close to school outside of this time could put other staff, parents/carers and pupils at risk. Please ensure you are aware of your child’s pick up and drop off times and stick rigidly to these times to help the day run smoothly – Your child’s class teacher will collect children from the gate and they will be escorted into school to wash hands immediately.  Children and parents must wait alongside school fence and not come to the door and ring buzzer. If you are late you must ring the office to arrange an alternative drop off/pick up.

If you need to pass any medication into school please contact the office in the first instance- 0191 3710444 and we will arrange to meet you in the main entrance.

 

Staffing Update

Mrs Aspinall will be returning back to school from Maternity Leave on Monday 10^th May. Mrs Plant’s last day at school will be Friday 7^th May and would like to thank her for all of her hard work and dedication over this challenging time while covering two maternity leaves. She will be a big miss and we wish her lots of luck and success in her future work.

 

COVID-19 Information

Please remember that if your child develops any of the three key symptoms of COVID-19, you must keep them off school and book them a PCR test and you need to inform the school that they are absent due to suspected COVID-19. Whilst a lot of the time these tests end up being negative, every potential case of COVID-19 has implications for school – if we are aware that pupils are going for tests, we can begin planning for a potential bubble closure sooner. If we only find out once they have received a positive result, this understandably causes extra strain and stress which could be eased if we were aware of the possibility. In addition to this, we are required to report to the DfE on a daily basis whether we have pupils off for reasons relating to COVID-19, so it is imperative that we know if that is why your child is off so our information can be as accurate as possible.

 

COVID-19 Symptoms & Testing

It is also important to remember that if you, or your child, develop symptoms of COVID-19, it is not enough to have a lateral flow test, which many of you will be taking on a regular basis. Anyone with COVID-19 symptoms must isolate and book a PCR test whether or not you have had a negative lateral flow test.

 

Statutory KS1 and KS2 assessments

Statutory KS1 and KS2 assessments planned for summer 2021 won’t go ahead but school will still do teacher assessments. We will administer the optional Year 4  multiplication tables check and the Year 1 Phonics Screening Assessment within the 3-week period from 7 June 2021. Year 2 and Year 6 teacher assessments will take place week beginning May 10^th 2021.

The DfE has added temporary disapplications to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) – as such, it won’t be mandatory to complete the EYFS profile assessment in 2021.

 

PE Kits

Children in Class 1 and 2 will need to bring their full PE kit into school on the first day back in a PE bag or carrier bag. Please ensure that this is labelled with their name and class. The PE kits will be stored in the cloakrooms on a labelled peg in school and sent home weekly to be washed. Class 3 and 4 will come into school with their PE kits on allocated PE days to avoid moving around.

Class 3- PE days for the rest of this term are WED and THUR

Class 4- PE days for the rest of this term are WED and THUR

 

School Holidays and Term Dates 2020 – 2021

 

I am sure that many of you will have had holidays cancelled or postponed and will be considering when these can be re-booked for next year. It is really important to remember that holidays during term times can only be authorised in very exceptional circumstances. Very few holidays are ever authorised and this is likely to be even lower next year. It is going to be essential for ALL children to be in school as much as possible due to the extended closure of schools during the latter half of this year. Please also bear in mind that if you do decide to take a holiday during term time which has not been authorised, if your child is out of school for more than 7 consecutive days you can be fined – £60 per parent for each child.

Holiday	Closing Date	Date re-open for Teaching Purposes
Summer Holiday	Friday 17th July 2020	Wednesday 2nd September 2020
October Half Term	Friday 23rd October 2020	Monday 2nd November 2020
Christmas Holiday	Friday 18th December 2020	Tuesday 5th January 2021
February Half Term	Friday 12th February 2021	Monday 22nd February 2021
Easter Holiday	Friday 26th March 2021	Tuesday 13th April 2021
May Day	Friday 30th April 2021	Tuesday 4th May 2021
Summer Half Term	Friday 28th May 2021	Monday 7th June 2021
Summer Holiday	Friday 16th July 2021	Thursday 2nd September 2021

 

 

 

Once again thank you for your support in these challenging times.

 

 

Donna Lee

Head Teacher

Well done to our award winners this week.

Well done Oscar and good luck in your new school.

Well done Lacie-Mae for an excellent dance performance.

On the last day of term we had a birthday party for everybody – as so many children had lockdown birthdays.

As a special surprise, the ice cream van came and brought us all a tasty treat!

Have a lovely Easter everybody!

 

 

Today was spent raising money and awareness for the amazing charity ‘Brain Tumour Awareness’

All of the staff and children wore hats; taking part in the ‘Wear a Hat Day’ fundraising. Thank you for everyone who donated £1 to this amazing cause 🙂

Whether it’s finding fun things for the kids to do, paying for extra childcare, or even just all that extra food they seem to eat, the school holidays can be a struggle for many families. Covid-19 has meant that many people’s incomes have been reduced and children and young people are keen to get out and spend time with their friends.

We want to make sure no young people go hungry during the holidays. That’s why we launched our Fun and Food programme, providing fun activities with healthy snacks and meals for children and young people. Activities are provided by range of partners including schools, voluntary and community sector groups, sport and leisure services and our Family Centres.

For information on Fun and Food activities during the Easter holidays check out www.durham.gov.uk/FunAndFood

Participation Articles 12 & 13 DOWNLOAD

Today in Mrs Morton’s Assembly we looked at the importance of being SMART when you are online… especially with the world being a whole lot more virtual in the last year.

Check out the PowerPoint and discussion points for more information 🙂

Online Internet Safety PowerPoint Assembly